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With over 175 album credits and countless live shows, Karen Kane has thrived in the music business for more than 30 years.

She's engineered 3 JUNO nominated albums in '97, '02, '03 (The JUNO Award is the "Canadian Grammy"). Other albums have been nominated for Boston Music Awards, and singles have appeared on U.S. music charts. Her extensive experience with on-location mobile recording includes BareNaked Ladies and Janis Ian. In 1986, Karen helped launch Tracy Chapman's career by engineering her first-ever demo recording. In addition to several years of jingle engineering, she managed a number of recording studios including a major jingle facility in New York City. Her live sound work at music festivals and concerts has been going on since 1976 and is still very active.

Her recording career, originally focused in the Boston area from 1974-1990, was based in Canada from 1990 to 2002. While in Toronto, Karen designed and taught audio classes for Centennial College and The Learning Annex. In 1998, she joined the faculty at Harris Institute for the Arts. During her 5 years teaching in Toronto, she earned a highly respected reputation as an instructor in the audio arts. Karen also has had numerous featured articles published in Canadian Musician, Professional Sound, Sing Out and Hot Wire.

In April 2002, Karen re-located to Wilmington, North Carolina and continues her career as Producer/Engineer, working all over North America. Recent highlights include: recording and mixing music performed by the group, Painted Man for an May, 03 episode of the television show, Dawson's Creek and the start of Karen Kane's School of Audio Engineering. Classes are offered 3 times a year.

Impressive credentials for any producer, and certainly motivational for our female readers.

We felt it would benefit our readers to put some questions to Karen in attempt to extract some handy hints for the aspiring producer.

Are you a live producer or programmer?

I produce/engineer album projects and demos with live musicians. I also do live sound at concerts and music festivals and have, in recent years also become an audio instructor starting my own school here in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Is automation everything it's cracked up to be?

Absolutely. With automated mixes, you can fine tune a mix that may have over 50 changes that you don't have to do manually. It frees you up so you can think about the overall picture after you've programmed in all your moves.

What are your thoughts on audio education in college?

Audio education is an absolute necessity if you are wanting to do this work. Finding the right school with GOOD teachers is the challenge.

What was your first commercial job?

I have been self-employed since 1977, doing full length album projects since day one. In the 2 years before that when I was learning sound engineering on the job, I worked on several album projects in 1976.

Analogue or Digital?

I miss working with 2" analog but I have become comfortable enough with Pro Tools to feel it surpasses analog in the things that you can do. I love the sound of analog and always will. When the budget is there, I sometimes go to analog and then transfer into Pro Tools later down the road in the project.

What do you feel to be the most important development in audio technology in recent years?

In recent years, the most significant thing I see is that ProTools has become the industry standard for recording and mixing in professional studios. I think the fact that this has happened has pushed the makers of Pro Tools into making the program sound better and better and be more user friendly.

What has been your most memorable session?

This is a very difficult question to answer. I have done about 175 album projects and hundreds of demos over the last 26 years and SO MANY have been memorable. Working with Tracy Chapman in 1986 before she was famous was pretty awesome.

How did you get to be a producer?

I began in the management end of the studio business which eventually led to sound engineering which eventually led to producing.

Any advice for a wannabe producer?

Fine-tune your musical knowledge coupled with learning audio technology. Find a great audio school to go to.

Finally Karen could you list you please list your discography?

Too long to list here. Full list is on my website...

Thank you for your time, Karen, it’s been very helpful. For more information about the School of Audio Engineering in Wilmington, NC visit Karen’s site.